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I
think I knew when I was naughty, for I knew that it hurt Ella, my nurse, to
kick her, and when my fit of temper was over I had a feeling akin to regret.
But I cannot remember any instance in which this feeling prevented me from
repeating the naughtiness when I failed to get what I wanted.
In
those days a little coloured girl, Martha Washington, the child of our cook,
and Belle, an old setter, and a great hunter in her day, were my constant
companions. Martha Washington understood my signs, and I seldom had any
difficulty in making her do just as I wished. It pleased me to domineer over
her, and she generally submitted to my tyranny rather than risk a
hand-to-hand encounter. I was strong, active, indifferent to consequences. I
knew my own mind well enough and always had my own way, even if I had to
fight tooth and nail for it. We spent a great deal of time in the kitchen,
kneading dough balls, helping make ice-cream, grinding coffee, quarreling
over the cake-bowl, and feeding the hens and turkeys that swarmed about the
kitchen steps. Many of them were so tame that they would eat from my hand
and let me feel them. One big gobbler snatched a tomato from me one day and
ran away with it. Inspired, perhaps, by Master Gobbler's success, we carried
off to the woodpile a cake which the cook had just frosted, and ate every
bit of it. I was quite ill afterward, and I wonder if retribution also
overtook the turkey.
The
guinea-fowl likes to hide her nest in out-of-the-way places, and it was one
of my greatest delights to hunt for the eggs in the long grass. I could not
tell Martha Washington when I wanted to go egg-hunting, but I would double
my hands and put them on the ground, which meant something round in the
grass, and Martha always understood. When we were fortunate enough to find a
nest I never allowed her to carry the eggs home, making her understand by
emphatic signs that she might fall and break them.
The
sheds where the corn was stored, the stable where the horses were kept, and
the yard where the cows were milked morning and evening were unfailing
sources of interest to Martha and me. The milkers would let me keep my hands
on the cows while they milked, and I often got well switched by the cow for
my curiosity.
The
making ready for Christmas was always a delight to me. Of course I did not
know what it was all about, but I enjoyed the pleasant odours that filled
the house and the tidbits that were given to Martha Washington and me to
keep us quiet. We were sadly in the way, but that did not interfere with our
pleasure in the least. They allowed us to grind the spices, pick over the
raisins and lick the stirring spoons. I hung my stocking because the others
did; I cannot remember, however, that the ceremony interested me especially,
nor did my curiosity cause me to wake before daylight to look for my gifts.
Martha
Washington had as great a love of mischief as I. Two little children were
seated on the veranda steps one hot July afternoon. One was black as ebony,
with little bunches of fuzzy hair tied with shoestrings sticking out all
over her head like corkscrews. The other was white, with long golden curls.
One child was six years old, the other two or three years older. The younger
child was blind--that was I--and the other was Martha Washington. We were
busy cutting out paper dolls; but we soon wearied of this amusement, and
after cutting up our shoestrings and clipping all the leaves off the
honeysuckle that were within reach, I turned my attention to Martha's
corkscrews. She objected at first, but finally submitted. Thinking that turn
and turn about is fair play, she seized the scissors and cut off one of my
curls, and would have cut them all off but for my mother's timely
interference.
Belle,
our dog, my other companion, was old and lazy and liked to sleep by the open
fire rather than to romp with me. I tried hard to teach her my sign
language, but she was dull and inattentive. She sometimes started and
quivered with excitement, then she became perfectly rigid, as dogs do when
they point a bird. I did not then know why Belle acted in this way; but I
knew she was not doing as I wished. This vexed me and the lesson always
ended in a one-sided boxing match. Belle would get up, stretch herself
lazily, give one or two contemptuous sniffs, go to the opposite side of the
hearth and lie down again, and I, wearied and disappointed, went off in
search of Martha.
Many
incidents of those early years are fixed in my memory, isolated, but clear
and distinct, making the sense of that silent, aimless, dayless life all the
more intense.
One
day I happened to spill water on my apron, and I spread it out to dry before
the fire which was flickering on the sitting-room hearth. The apron did not
dry quickly enough to suit me, so I drew nearer and threw it right over the
hot ashes. The fire leaped into life; the flames encircled me so that in a
moment my clothes were blazing. I made a terrified noise that brought Viny,
my old nurse, to the rescue. Throwing a blanket over me, she almost
suffocated me, but she put out the fire. Except for my hands and hair I was
not badly burned.
About
this time I found out the use of a key. One morning I locked my mother up in
the pantry, where she was obliged to remain three hours, as the servants
were in a detached part of the house. She kept pounding on the door, while I
sat outside on the porch steps and laughed with glee as I felt the jar of
the pounding. This most naughty prank of mine convinced my parents that I
must be taught as soon as possible. After my teacher, Miss Sullivan, came to
me, I sought an early opportunity to lock her in her room. I went upstairs
with something which my mother made me understand I was to give to Miss
Sullivan; but no sooner had I given it to her than I slammed the door to,
locked it, and hid the key under the wardrobe in the hall. I could not be
induced to tell where the key was. My father was obliged to get a ladder and
take Miss Sullivan out through the window--much to my delight. Months after
I produced the key.
When
I was about five years old we moved from the little vine-covered house to a
large new one. The family consisted of my father and mother, two older
half-brothers, and, afterward, a little sister, Mildred. My earliest
distinct recollection of my father is making my way through great drifts of
newspapers to his side and finding him alone, holding a sheet of paper
before his face. I was greatly puzzled to know what he was doing. I imitated
this action, even wearing his spectacles, thinking they might help solve the
mystery. But I did not find out the secret for several years. Then I learned
what those papers were, and that my father edited one of them.
My
father was most loving and indulgent, devoted to his home, seldom leaving
us, except in the hunting season. He was a great hunter, I have been told,
and a celebrated shot. Next to his family he loved his dogs and gun. His
hospitality was great, almost to a fault, and he seldom came home without
bringing a guest. His special pride was the big garden where, it was said,
he raised the finest watermelons and strawberries in the county; and to me
he brought the first ripe grapes and the choicest berries. I remember his
caressing touch as he led me from tree to tree, from vine to vine, and his
eager delight in whatever pleased me.
He
was a famous story-teller; after I had acquired language he used to spell
clumsily into my hand his cleverest anecdotes, and nothing pleased him more
than to have me repeat them at an opportune moment.
I
was in the North, enjoying the last beautiful days of the summer of 1896,
when I heard the news of my father's death. He had had a short illness,
there had been a brief time of acute suffering, then all was over. This was
my first great sorrow--my first personal experience with death.
How
shall I write of my mother? She is so near to me that it almost seems
indelicate to speak of her.
For
a long time I regarded my little sister as an intruder. I knew that I had
ceased to be my mother's only darling, and the thought filled me with
jealousy. She sat in my mother's lap constantly, where I used to sit, and
seemed to take up all her care and time. One day something happened which
seemed to me to be adding insult to injury.
At
that time I had a much-petted, much-abused doll, which I afterward named
Nancy. She was, alas, the helpless victim of my outbursts of temper and of
affection, so that she became much the worse for wear. I had dolls which
talked, and cried, and opened and shut their eyes; yet I never loved one of
them as I loved poor Nancy. She had a cradle, and I often spent an hour or
more rocking her. I guarded both doll and cradle with the most jealous care;
but once I discovered my little sister sleeping peacefully in the cradle. At
this presumption on the part of one to whom as yet no tie of love bound me I
grew angry. I rushed upon the cradle and over-turned it, and the baby might
have been killed had my mother not caught her as she fell. Thus it is that
when we walk in the valley of twofold solitude we know little of the tender
affections that grow out of endearing words and actions and companionship.
But afterward, when I was restored to my human heritage, Mildred and I grew
into each other's hearts, so that we were content to go hand-in-hand
wherever caprice led us, although she could not understand my finger
language, nor I her childish prattle.
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